This is a link to the fourth in an ongoing series billed as the 30 Day Challenge to save $1,000 by Ramit Sethi at IWillTeachYouToBeRich.com, his blog on personal finance (banking, saving, budgeting, and investing) and personal entrepreneurship. His series outlines the various ways we can keep money in our pockets.

For more people, the reason they fail to save money is not a lack of money-saving ideas — it’s themselves and their lack of discipline.

Ramit reminds us that our spending is based on context — if your friends are spending money, odds are you are, too. If you involve your friends in your efforts, you will get some accountability (telling others, making public commitments, is highly persuasive), and even if they do not change their habits (that’s not what you’re asking them to do, unless you make it a group challenge), you might get their support in your efforts to change your own.